


Chasing Ghosts

by raewise



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/M, Ghosts, Medium!Raleigh, Precognitive!Mako
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-13
Updated: 2013-09-13
Packaged: 2017-12-26 10:54:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/965106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raewise/pseuds/raewise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raleigh’s dead brother just won’t leave him alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chasing Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU I’m working on where a good percentage of the population have superpowers and stuff. Some pursue crime fighting, but most just live their lives as normal. Raleigh and Yancy are both pretty OOC here, but oh well.

Yancy just wouldn’t shut up today. Raleigh ducked his head, trying to ignore the looks he gets as he walks “alone” down the centre of the road. He tugs his hat down lower on his head, keeping his eyes down. Yancy doesn’t seem to realize how uncomfortable he’s making his little brother, and just keeps going on and on about mechanics or something of the like.

Finally, Raleigh ducked into an alley and leaned against the wall, forcing his eyes closed. Yancy continued talking, but falters for a moment. Then, his voice drifted off. When Raleigh opened his eyes he’s gone. He sighed through his nose, adjusting his gloves, and popping his collar up against the wind, and joined the crowd once more.

Yancy died four years ago in a boating accident, but he hadn’t left Raleigh alone since. Ghosts are known for returning to something familiar to them, whether a location or a person, but it’s very rare that said person would be able to see and hear them.

Raleigh’s always been told he was special. One of the “gifted” folk in the world with powers unlike any other. Seeing the dead isn’t a gift, he tried to tell the counsellor at school, the dead should stay silent. She had just patted him on the head and told him that everything would be alright. That was a load of bull and Raleigh knew it. His brother was dead, he flunked out of school, and he felt forced to put on a brave face for the man who should just leave him alone already.

Puffing out a white fog of air, Raleigh pressed on, relief evident on his face. Yancy in life had been the quiet, strong older brother who would ruffle his hair and tell him that he was being too rowdy, while Raleigh was the cheerful, energetic younger sibling who didn’t know when to shut up. After the accident, it seemed their roles were reversed. Now Raleigh was a year older than Yancy was when he died, and he was stoic and silent unless the situation needed him to be otherwise.

He just wanted his old life back.

Trudging through the crowd to get to the supermarket was something he did every day, and the repetition made his fingertips warm with comfort. It was hard for him to feel comfortable in his old skin, but repetition made it easier. Having the things you know—the old woman who had died from food poisoning sobbing at the crusty old cafe on the corner of the street, the little kid who got hit by a car last year giggling as he ran down the street, the teenage girl who jumped off the roof of her family’s condo sitting against the wall with tiny flames in her hands—made it all easier to forget the things he didn’t want to.

The automatic doors were down due to cold weather, so he shouldered his way into the building, the heaters immediately blasting him with hot air that made a grateful shiver run down his spin. The man in the ghostly noose hung over by the other entrance, creaking and babbling to himself.

Stuffing his gloves into the pocket of his coat, Raleigh grabbed a basket and went along his business as usual. Behind him, the familiar coldness of Yancy appeared, but this time the other man was quiet. Then, “Something’s going to happen today.”

Raleigh stopped, his grip on the basket handles so hard his knuckles went white, but he just furrowed his brow and rolled his shoulders, trying to ignore it. The words pressed against his skull, repeating over and over again. Ghosts didn’t see the future, unless they could when they were alive. Yancy hadn’t had any mental abilities. His powers had been purely elemental. The irony of a water shifter drowning was almost hysterical.

“Rals,” Yancy said from behind him, and Raleigh’s breath caught in his throat. “She’s here.”

Finally, Raleigh looked back at his older brother, and the other man’s eyes were big and utterly amazed. He was looking over in the corner of the room, and when Raleigh followed his gaze his eyes connected with deep brown ones.

The girl was average-sized, Japanese, with a pitch black bob and streaks of lightning blue. Her eyes sparkled with wisdom, like she’d seen things far past her age. She had a tiny smile dancing across full lips. She turned away slightly, her basket hanging off her forearm, then walked away.

Raleigh wasn’t entirely sure why he followed. Maybe it was the fact that Yancy was stunned into silence, or the fact that the girl had a weird vibe. A Super vibe. That’s what he was, and what Yancy was: Supers. A cultural phenomenon that was getting more and more powerful as the years went on.

He nearly bolted after her, but she was already waiting for him, dark eyes glimmering as she smiled up at him. “Hello, Raleigh,” she greeted, bouncing on her heels.

Raleigh balked. “You—I—”

“I am Mako Mori. We haven’t met.” She was still smiling up at him, and Yancy was watching from beside him.

“Whoa,” his brother said.

“Whoa,” Raleigh repeated.

Mako just gave him that odd little grin. She had dimples in her cheeks.

“How do you know my name?”

“You told me.” Raleigh was about to interrupt that that wasn’t possible, since she’d just said so herself that they hadn’t met before, but she rushed on with, “In the future. Or, you would’ve. I have changed the cycle of events.”

Raleigh gave her a lost expression and she giggled into the back of her hand.

“You have been through much pain, Raleigh. You have my deepest respects and sympathies. Is Yancy here with us right now?”

Behind him, Yancy gasped.

Raleigh’s eyes were big. She was definitely a Super. Precognitive, from the looks of things. He’d always heard those who could see the future were a little kooky, but this…

“Yeah. He is.”

Mako nodded.

“What… else do you know? About me. Yancy. Whatever.”

“He died a few years ago, and now you feel you are all alone, even though he is very much trying to be there for you. You will say it yourself, ‘Not all of the dead want to be seen.’ He loves you very much, you know. And now I am here as well.”

Raleigh wants to hug this girl and cry at the same time, but he just shakes his head in disbelief. “You—”

“—are amazing. Thank you.”

Raleigh flushes. The only person who’d ever finished his sentences like that, ever read him like that, had been Yancy. This girl, some random Super who was both tiny and magnificent all at once, was grinning up at him like she knew his every secret. She probably did.

“I know you are going to ask me anyway, Raleigh, so would you like to go out for a coffee? You’re off work for the next couple hours.”

Raleigh nodded dumbly. Mako reached over to grab his basket. Their fingers brushed and it was like electricity running up and down his arms. His lips curled up at the corners almost without his knowledge.

“You have enough eggs to last until tomorrow, and you can live without a glass of milk tonight, I believe.” She firmly gripped his hand and for someone he just met, Mako was extremely familiar. Much less gruesome than the crying child laying in his own blood down the aisle.

“I don’t know what I can say that you wouldn’t already know,” he confessed.

Her thumb ran along his knuckles, and there’s some part of Raleigh that unwinds and gently falls back into place in the back of his mind. He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Make your own history, and I’ll clean through the future for you.”

She tugged him along behind her, and when Raleigh checks Yancy has vanished. Her nails, covered in chipped black nail polish, dig into the back of his hands as she quickly stops again.

“I nearly forgot,” Mako said, turning back around and gripping the front of his jacket in her fist. “To save us a lot of trouble in a little while—” She kissed him hard on the mouth, one hand in his and the other tangled in his hair, and he felt like he’s melting.

She smiled against his lips. “Not all futures want to be seen, either, but sometimes you get a glimpse. This is a future I want very much, Raleigh Becket. Please don’t mess this up for me.”

He blinked and stared into her eyes, and could only manage to whisper, “Where you go I’ll follow.”


End file.
